Crosslinked polymer supports have been useful in catalysis, separations and solid phase synthesis. Crosslinked polymer supports were initially provided as homogeneous porous particles, which were typically used in continuous flow processes including, inter alia, chromatography. However, a number of significant issues exist with respect to the use of particulate sorbents: slow exchange between convective flow and binding to the solid support which leads to poor resolution, large void volume between packed particles, high back pressures and low dynamic binding capacity, particularly for macromolecules. The above limitations have restricted the use of homogeneous porous particles as functionalized supports with attached recognition molecules which can bind various ligands.
More recently, porous monolithic materials have been developed (Arrua, et al., Materials (2009) 2 2429-2466; Svec et al., Monolith Materials, J. of Chromatography Library, Vol. 67, Svec et al., (Eds.); Wu et al., J. Chromatography A (2008) 369-392). These heterogeneous macroporous polymers have a rigid porous structure which is formed during preparation and is usually maintained in any solvent or in a dry state and imparts a sponge like quality to the monolith. Importantly, the problems of large void volumes (i.e., high permeability), slow exchange (i.e., poor rates of mass transfer) of macromolecules, poor resolution and high back pressures are mitigated in such monolithic materials where fluid flow is through the pores of the monolith. Currently, monoliths have been used mainly for chromatographic separations with relatively little attention devoted to the preparation of monoliths functionalized with attached recognition molecules (particularly, DNA) for ligand binding and use, for example, in arrays.
Accordingly, what is needed are monoliths which include attached recognition compounds and arrays of these monoliths Such monoliths and arrays thereof will be useful, inter alia, in ligand binding.